By Jonathan Keller
If you’re keeping up with this series, this is the third week in a row on the idea of God’s love. First, He’s “merciful and gracious,” next He’s “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Here, He’s “keeping steadfast love for thousands.” Isn’t this a bit redundant? Why not move onto a different attribute of God?
God made our brains to love novelty. New landscapes, new people, new foods excite us, but the same of anything bores us to tears. It is a bit presumptuous of us, though, to assume that we know everything there is to know about the same things we see every day.
Focus on the new word in this phrase: “keeping.” God keeps, watches, guards covenant-bound love for a whole ton of people. Why “keeping?”
Keeping Safe
God’s love is unfathomable by virtue of His eternal nature, but He gives us glimpses into different aspects of His unfathomable love that we might have a taste of its manifold glory.
In the Old Testament, God uses images like a mother hen, a fortress, or even a mighty rock to describe the safety in His love. These images show us strength and security behind His love for His people. They also convey an active, personal choice on God’s part to keep loving in the face of many dangers.
Dangers to Love
Think of how easy it is for our love to fade. Your sibling stole your favorite toy as a child, and now your love turns to hatred. Right after a sermon about loving your enemies and even praying for “the other side of the aisle,” someone cuts you off in traffic and out pours vitriol from your mouth.
Sin, rebellion, corruption, and evil all endanger love. Why love when someone has clearly wronged you?
From God’s perspective, why should He love people who tread on His commandments with their feet, spit on His name, and revolt against Him mere moments after He displays His infinite love to them? Why should He, a free God, have to love people who lob hatred back at Him? Our sin presents a real challenge to God’s love, yet His love is the kind of love that He keeps in the real danger of corruption. He chooses against our patterns of dysfunction to love us again and again, and love all of His people (not just some of them)!
Keeping Us in His Kept Love
Security or assurance for God’s people is held up by His continued (and enduring) choice to love us in the face of the danger of sin. Though we should threaten to give God an eternity of reasons to reject us, He continues to withhold the fullness of judgment toward us and show us His great love instead! How?
Well, we’ll have to wait for how God deals with the problem of justice for a couple more weeks!
For now, how have you seen the Lord keep His love on you despite your many failures?